other years

2009 Boston Skillshare

info workshops pictures

everything you ever wanted to know about zines but were afraid to ask

this workshop is open to seasoned, long-term zine-makers, as well as those curious about making a zine for the first time. the first half of the workshop will be a Q&A where folks can learn more about the various aspects of zine-making & zine-culture: what to write, how to do layout, how to cut costs in copying & postage, how to find readers, trading, distribution networks, zine libraries, making long-term zine friends, & more! there will be space for people to ask about any questions they have about zines, & hopefully this will become a group discussion...

before we get into making zines! supplies will be provided (but feel free to bring your own) so hopefully everyone at the workshop will have time & space to make a page or two for a collective workshop zine. donations & contact info will be collected so all participants will get a copy of the zine after the skillshare is over. put your newfound skills & tricks right away! (donations & zine pages will be accepted all weekend, so don't worry about feeling rushed.)

details

when: saturday, april 18th, 2009, from 12:25 pm - 1:55 pm
to attend: Please see the info page for more information on attending any of the workshops at the 2009 Boston Skillshare.
facilitated by: ciara xyerra

lesson plan

maybe 5 minutes to introduce myself & outline some of my experience/areas of expertise
open the floor up for discussion & questions about about 40 minutes--maybe a little less or a little more, depending on how things are going. special emphasis especially on how to get readers & get zines out into the world (since that's what i am best at), but it will be participant-led--we will talk about what they want to talk about.

45 minutes for zine-making! i'm hoping to have a bunch of zine-making tools (see resources) out for people to use to get creative & make quarter-sized zine pages, which i will collect after the workshop/over the course of the weekend, & compile, copy, collate, etc etc, & mail out to collaborators after the skillshare.

facilitator experience

i've been reading zines since 1991, making them since 1994 (in the last ten years: "a renegade's handbook to love & sabotage," "you live for the fight when that's all that you've got," "love letters to monsters," & "up the logic punks!"), & running a zine distro (learning to leave a paper trail) since 2003. on top of organizing zine/d.i.y. fests (bowling green zine fair in 1999, boston skillshare 2002-2007) volunteering at zine libraries (papercut), teaching various workshops about different aspects of zine creation & culture over the last ten years (the art of cut & paste, how to run a distro, basic zine-making, how to get distribution, writing & editing for zinesters, race/gender/class in zines, the future of zines) in two different countries & maybe a dozen different cities...yup. zines are pretty much my thing.

intended audience

anyone who wants to come learn about zines, or anyone who wants to make zines. i imagine kids would be welcome, but there will be scissors & stuff around, so little kids & babies will need to have some supervision, obviously.

other resources suggested by the facilitator

my zine distro, at http://www.papertraildistro.com, sports a catalogue of about 150 different awesome political/personal zines, for folks who want to read some more zines before they get started. i also run a zinester interview series, which is archived on the site. over 25 zinesters have done interviews in the last three years. & recently, i started a paper trail grant program for zinesters struggling to financially support their zine projects. more details are forthcoming.

within boston, TJ's pizza restaurant (allston) stocks paper trail zines, as does the lucy parsons center (the south end). papercut zine library in cambridge has something like 7000 different zines available for loan to library patrons. a new social networking site specifically for zinesters has started up & can be located at http://wemakezines.ning.com. there are communities for every specialty niche you could ever want, or you can start your own. there are also blogs, discussion forums, & regular announcements about zine events, new releases, etc.

there are also at least a dozen big zine-specific fests every year around the country, & in other parts of the world (australia, germany, canada, the united kingdom...). some especially awesome ones include the portland zine symposium (portland OR), the richmond zine fest (richmond VA), & everything happening around the roberts street social center in halifax, nova scotia (which also runs an artist-in-residency program which has supported many zinesters in the last few years). keep your eye on lawrence, kansas too. big things are predicted for 2010...